


Like a Butterfly

by Named



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Abuse, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Underfell (Undertale), Angst, Bad Sans, Blood, Creep!Sans (Underfell), Dom!Sans, F/M, Feisty Frisk, Gore, Graphic Rape, Graphic Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Molestation, Non-smutty Sexual encounters, Physical Abuse, Poor Frisk, Post-Undertale Pacifist Route, Pranks, Rape, Reader is Frisk (Undertale), Sadism, Spicy Cinnamon Roll Papyrus, Unhealthy Relationships, dubcon, puns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-05 12:10:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16367537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Named/pseuds/Named
Summary: “Sans.”“what?”“I can’tsaveout here.” Frisk pleaded, calm and even in the midst of her fear.And his hand rested on her calf, almost comforting. “i know that, kiddo.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Like a Feather](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6069211) by [KenyaKetchup (temptedmelibea)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/temptedmelibea/pseuds/KenyaKetchup). 
  * Inspired by [Creep](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5752618) by [KenyaKetchup (temptedmelibea)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/temptedmelibea/pseuds/KenyaKetchup). 



> **Warning:** Please take the tags seriously. This is not smut, but abuse, so be aware of that going in. Please also be an adult!! 
> 
> I made some edits for continuity now that I know where the story is going, so if the comments seem out of order, that's why. Thank you for being patient with me >//<

I took you home  
Set you on the glass  
I pulled off your wings

Then I laughed

[-Deaftones](https://youtu.be/hzRltUL5M3k)

**_ i _ **

     It was just mustard. A family-sized, yellow bottle tipping between Sans’s triangular teeth, and Frisk’s eyes stayed glued to it as it did. He picked it up, tipped, squirted. The skeleton didn’t have a throat, so he didn’t swallow, but Frisk could feel the sour tang at the back of hers as _she_ swallowed _for_ him. He set the bottle down, and the vicarious flavor dug at the pit in her stomach. Her hand wrung at her striped sweater in front of that hole.

     Painful crimp, rolling gurgle.

     The monster glanced up from his scribbling, interrupted, and to the cinnamon-brown child stuffed away at the foot of his bed. To the mustard. The kid.

     She whispered, “...is that good?”

And Sans squinted, curious. “it’s mustard,” He picked it up, watching her follow the bottle as he stuck it between his sharp teeth and withdrew it. He closed his mouth. Frisk swallowed.

     She sat on the piled covers, wide awake and exhausted. Solid with fear and light with hunger.

     “don’t move,” Sans said, and he disappeared, small crackling noises like soft fireworks trailing behind him.

     The bottle stared at her, the plastic, school bus yellow gnawing at the fright her friend and captor left behind. He had told her not to move, and she didn’t want to know what he would do this time if she didn’t listen, but the hunger was quickly becoming all she could think about. If she had just a _little_ , he wouldn’t notice. Just enough to ease the pain so she could think again, and maybe…maybe find a way out. She didn’t know how long he would be. Hours? Minutes? But when he decided to return it would take no time at all. She had to be ready to dive back into her nest of blankets, if needed.

     She began by stretching out a single leg, tensing it so she was ready to snap back at the firework crackling of his return. Then the next leg. She stilled. When it became obvious he wasn’t coming right back, she, with her hurting stomach flipping nervously, rolled onto her belly and slid off the side of the several foot high bed. Her feet thumped on the black carpet where she landed.

     Timidly, Frisk hoisted herself up the splintery chair and, without messing up the number-scattered papers on the desk, she leaned forward and plucked the bottle up by the tip. Now that she had it, there wasn’t any stopping herself. She guzzled the contents, spicy and warm with magic, like an infant, and when she could squeeze no more, she unscrewed the cap, sticking her tongue past the scraping plastic edges to scoop out what she could. As if she where a balloon, the pain of hunger was soothed, and the lightness, dizziness, fog, was left sticking to her mind and body.

     Still, the pinching was gone. And to take its place, Frisk was filled with _determination_. She couldn’t let the evil Sans keep her here, in this rotten version of the Underground, and he hadn’t simply laid an escape route in front of her. Maybe he wasn’t as smart as _her_ Sans, but…she had tried the obvious thing. The door. And it had shocked her so hard she’d had an accident. At _eight years old_ …and maybe Sans had been unusually nice to her after that, but the embarrassment had kept her…complacent. Afraid in a way that dying didn’t anymore.

     And while her Sans was smarter, this one still clearly more knew than she did. He wasn’t just a grown up after all, but also a scientist. How was she supposed to get away from that?

     Still, even with the doubt clouding her, something had been stirring in the back of her mind ever since that door incident. _This_ Sans wore his lame pink slippers even more often than hers. He drank a condiment, — mustard instead of ketchup — and he even had a much more painful looking tornado of junk swirling in his room, and if he did those things the same, then maybe…he kept his keys in the same drawer.

     She was at his desk.

     She had already moved _and_ drank all of his mostly full bottle of mustard.

She was in trouble when he came back, even if she _didn’t_ go searching where she shouldn’t.

     Leaning in the chair, she reached a finger out to touch the target drawer. Getting shocked again was not high in her list of priorities, but if nothing else, it would tell her that maybe the thing she wanted was there.

 _Tap_.

     Nothing. And a soup of fear and relief. Maybe there was nothing important in this whole entire dresser. She might have to go out the window after all, and monster houses were _tall_ , and there were no trees or gutters to climb down. The bottom would be painful, and the feeling of dropping turned her tummy on the best of days.

     Without the threat of pain, it was worth looking, even if there ended up being only junk. She hooked her fingers, confident, through the cool, metal ringlet, and glanced around the room, perking her ears before tugging at the heavy wood.

     A _tink_ before the wooden lip of the drawer had ever opened, and _maybe there was a key in there after all_. But when it opened, she never had a chance to make anything out, because pooling inside, unfurling from the corners like thick, misty drool, was a sick, brownish yellowish smog. It ran down her leg, curling over it, and at first it tingled numbly in her eyes and nose. She slammed it shut, but now the entire desk was smoking as if it were on fire, and almost as soon as it had started, that tingling became _burning_. Everywhere it touched, but magnified in her lungs, nose, eyes, it hooked, digging and scratching holes into her with its hot poison. She couldn’t see. Everything was blurry as her lungs tried to hack the smoke away, and—

 ** _Window_**!

     Scrambling up the desk in a flurry of limbs, Frisk pounded at the glass, panicking until her mind sharply grabbed itself. _**The lock, you stupid girl**_! Her fingers fumbled for it, squeezed and tore at the simple latch with her frying skin, and her heart crumpled when it stuck in place.  At the last second, _click_.

     And she shoved it open, tossing her leg into the bitter cold, sliding herself along the windowsill, lowering and then hanging against the siding like a limp noodle. Her fingers dug painfully in to the edges where she gripped, and what was she waiting for? Was she that afraid to fall?

      Suddenly it didn’t matter anymore what or who she wanted to get away from. It was decided for her. The back of her hands began to scorch as someone pushed down on them. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, her mouth tasted coppery, but she could hear. Sans. Laughing in that deep, growling way that told her exactly how unfunny he was finding this.

     “ **How’s it hangin’?** ”

     And Frisk was too busy coughing—

     Coughing, trying to breath, swallowing warm gobs of copper, to reply.

     “Nothin’ ta say?,” and he tapped the backs of her scraping wrists with his boney fingers. “Convenient.” Pressure lifted from one of her hands, and he sounded—

     Her skin was _boiling_ —

     He sounded upset. “I was tryin’a be _nice_ and ya pull this?”

     Some kind of rustling by her ear and she couldn’t _hold on_ anymore. Fingers of her free hand slipped off the ledge, and only vaguely was she aware that the skin parted wetly as they did. It took a moment. Warm blood freezing in the icy air before she realized _her skin had scraped off_ and she _screamed_.

     And, “shit,” Sans said. “shit, what the?” Claws around her pinned wrist, lifting her. Finger on her chin, tilting, examining. He lifted her shirt. Gagged, and then dropped it. “didn’t think it would be this bad...”

     And then a drum burst of lungs stretching, and dropping, and blood pushing from her belly, spraying from her mouth in the span of second. She fell to the ground. Her back was cold.

     More of that rustling, and, “fuck, fuck, fuck, open up!”

     Sans unhinged her jaws. Shoved something sharp in her full mouth, and—

     A far away voice. “Eat it, damnit! Swallow!” and her jaw pushed shut, but her head was already buzzing.

     Then it hit her. This sharp stuff was food. _Monster_ food, and if it didn’t feel like glass in her mouth, if her throat wasn’t swollen and blocked up, if she could _swallow_ ,

     It would heal her.

     Another hitching cough, and chunks of blood and food and spit down her face and in her messy brown hair.

     Too late.

     Buzzing turned to staticy black, and instinctively, she reached for her _save_.

 

 

 

 _Knowing you can fix the decrepit little town_  
_fills you with determination._

 

     —but this wasn’t _right_. No Gyftmas tree, or rather, a twisted, sharp, scary version of it. And where was the hote— **_RUN_**!

     She turned, feet pounding through the snow before another thought could surface. Knowing drenched her chest, sopping wet hopelessness that Sans...there was no getting away from him. He was already scooping her thrashing body into his arms and falling with her into the void, and into his room. He had already been too close, had known where she saved and she was stupid to even try a stunt like that when he was already going to be so _mad_ about her trying to leave. All she got out of running was to make it worse for herself.

     What point was there in holding back now? She tossed in his grip as he sat on the bed. Worked her into a swaddle in his arms. 

     She shouted. Arched her back, kicked her legs, yanked at her pinned arms, and—

     “shhh.”

     He was too strong, and…what? What was he doing?

     “shhh, it won’t happen again.”

     What did he mean ‘it won’t happen’? Was...he going to take her home?

     “i didn’t think it’d be that bad for humans,” he said. “i’ll fix it so it’ll hurt less, but kid, ya _can’t_ go snoopin’ around like that.”

     And Frisk…she didn’t understand what he _wanted_ from her, but she was _done_. She went limp in his arms. Wailed petulantly, and, “You _promised_!” Even as she said it, she knew he had not promised a thing. The good Sans had made that promise, and even if both of them remembered LOAD when no one else could, this was a different timeline, a spoiled one, and this Sans would never be good. “I just wanna go home, you _promised_ you would take me home. You _promised_ you would help!”

     And she knew he would scoff. She knew it, and he would laugh because _he would never say that_ , and maybe throw her under the bed where it was dark and cramped, and monsters like him would come to get her, but she couldn’t stop herself from sobbing.

     Instead, he said, “i know.”

     And _what_?

     Her tears stopped on her cheeks, breath still jerking and hiccupy. What did that mean?

     “You know…” she voiced, resigned.

     His face squeezed, and his arms stiffened to match, towing the line between comforting and hurting. “i know what i said, but…”

     “Sans,” she whispered, and all his edges softened as he looked down at her, wide-eyed, and for a moment, just as young as her. And if he remembered the good timeline, if he remembered who he was when he was _good_ …maybe she could help him see. “I can fix this. Let me go, and I can make it better. I _know_ I can.”

     And he shook his head, slow. Final. Sad. “you can’t nice your way through this place, kid. it’s too late for that.”

 

 

 

 

 🦋


	2. Chapter 2

And the stars, and the cars, and the bars, and the barmen  
Carmen, O my Carmen

-Lolita

**_ i _ **

     Nutty oil paints and pine thinner emanating from black canvas, and something about the smell gave Frisk the urge to lick her brush. She never _did_. Painting alongside her dad comprised most of her earliest memories, and somewhere within them she gained the knowledge that paint tasted awful. Shame, but wafting nostalgia, alongside the hope that one day she could be as talented as the man who inspired her, was enough to keep her glued to a brush.

     Examining her work, allowing the bumbling chatter of her classmates to drain incorporeally through her ears, she sat, creamy white nested in bristles which awaited her next stroke. Along Papyrus’s profile, his nasal ridge needed a tad more bulk. The monarch butterfly stretched effeminately on his fearsome skull…she should stop procrastinating on that since it was the only ‘symmetrical’ thing in her symmetry-themed final.

     Shuffling rustles beside her, and someone fumbled against her shoulder, loosening her pallet of custom oils and smearing it down the front of her uniform. She snatched for it in an effort to save it from it’s fate on the floor, swiped the forgotten brush against Papyrus’s protruding cheek bone, missed her target. It cracked on the concrete, the remaining paint spattering the bamboo legs of her easel.

     Shit. Brush tossed, bristle down, into the jar of thinner.

     “Shit,” echoed a preppy voice she recognized as Bratty. “That was totally my fault.”

     And Frisk had been just _sitting there_ , so it couldn’t have been _hers_ , but, “Sorry...”

     Bratty rolled her crocodile eyes, pilfered paper towels, turning the tap at nearby sink and wetting them.

     Now Frisk was gonna have to repaint Pap’s cheek, unless…she could pretend the mistake was meant as a menacing highlight?  
No. Makeup would be too much. She was already pushing it by placing a butterfly on the skull of the Captain of the Royal Guard.

     A deepish, boyish voice chortled behind her, and Frisk spun and met with Tops, his upper lip curled over his buckish front teeth.

     “The skirt, too? You should save paint for the canvas every once in awhile.”

     She chirped, “You’re late! I thought you weren’t coming today.”

     “I…might have gotten distracted with a shot on the way here.” He waggled the heavy, black camera bag strapped to his shoulder, and then glanced over Frisk. Tops’s long, rabbit ears tipped, azure fur dulling in the silence.

     What? What was the matter? Frisk searched the immediate vicinity, head turning on a bobble.

     Bratty was stiff at the sink, running water plumping the paper in her scaled hand, slit pupils intent on the stream I’m avoidance until she glanced and noticed that Frisk and Tops were staring at her. Squeaking the water off, she brought the weepy rag to Frisk, droplets pittering on the ground as she crossed; pulled Frisk’s hand away from its absent wiping. “Stop rubbing it in,” and She plopped the dripping paper into Frisk’s soiled fingers; went back to her own project — a small, abstract (and symmetrical) painting which waited at a desk, nestled among the scattered studentry at the other end of the room. Moody, she plopped next to Catty, who placed a reassuring mauve paw on her back as she glared back at Frisk and Tops.

     “Is…she okay?” Frisk asked, and tentatively placed the paper towel to her shirt. The orange, black, red, white, swirled and muddied as she scooped thick layers away.

     “I wouldn’t worry about it…” He left to the dispenser, pumping at the handle for more paper towels.

     Tops had never _been_ …what was this? Melancholy? He wasn’t his usual chipper self, and she didn’t like it.

     The _skwirk_ of the faucet, on and off, and Tops held his unoccupied hand out for her paint-filled rag.

     Frisk deposited the dirty and assumed the clean. “Thanks. Mom is gonna kill me for this. She bought this top yesterday and _told_ me not to get paint on it.”

     “That’d be a shame, since you haven’t finished—” Double take. “What the heck happened to Captain Papyrus?”

     With confirmation that she would indeed not be getting away with the makeup bit, Frisk waved a hand in front of her shirt.

     He peered at the painting, moving various distances — toward and away, left and right — around it. “It might blend in if you give him lipstick.”

     “No?”

     “Maybe a little eyeshadow around here.” He swirled the air above Papyrus’s socket.

     “I do not approve?”

     “You got away with the butterfly.”

     Frisk scrunched her nose, glared, “Not the point!” Chopped at her palm. “He is the great and _terrible_ …”

     The butterfly _was_ the point, wasn’t it?

     Tops’s sly grin told her that he already won this battle, and Frisk turned without a word, clasped the sides of the circular stool that sat in front of her easel, passed the floor to ceiling window that overlooked the brambles and clustered evergreens, and clacked in front of her spot at the long desk. “Where’s this mystical shot that made you so late?”

     Tops followed, glimmer in his eye as he pulled his camera bag off and set it on the desk; opened it, keeping the images hidden from her as he did, and pulled two photos from his case. “I’ve got a few, but these are the important ones,” he said, and tapped the back of the pair before removing the rearmost; slid it across the table, resting it in front of her, and it was…

     Wow…

     How did he mirror the butterfly like that? Or…no, he _couldn’t_ have. This was a Polaroid, and the purple to periwinkle fade on each of the creatures differed. But the way they stood, perched on the twirl of a bright, delicate vine as if ready to kiss… “How the hell did you pull this off? I’ve never even seen this type of butterfly, you cheating son of a snake.”

     He grinned all the way up to his long ears. “Pretty sick, huh?”

     “I haven’t even _finished_ my final yet,” she pouted, cradling the photo back into his waiting palm.

     He placed his impossible final in the case. “I still have another,” He said, handing Frisk the second.

     She took it, but did _not_ look at it, instead huffing, “I refuse. If you topped that masterpiece, I quit my art career.”

     He chuckled. “Just look.”

     Puffing, rolling her eyes, she landed them on the photo. An artsy street shot of two pink, glittery MttWorld tickets sitting, haphazard, between a red brick building and grey sidewalk. “Uh, no offense, but we agreed on butterflies.”

     “That’s your birthday present, dork.”

     “A picture of tickets?”

     “No- j-” Guffaw. “The actual tickets. You said you wanted to go, so…happy birthday!” Jazz hands.

     Gosh what a dork, but—

     Her birthday present? How did he even figure out that was today? Monsters celebrated _decades_ , and Frisk was only 13. “You didn’t have to.”

     “I _wanted_ to, except...” His smile crept into ‘oopsies’ territory. “I didn’t bother to find out if you could make it first. They’re for Saturday...”

     Oh…

     Sans would _not_ be happy if he found out, but her _mom_ …she’d been gone every weekend for 3 months. Maybe Frisk could convince her to stay home; tell her she’d be at the church. Toriel was so much more lenient, she’d never suspect that Frisk might go to an unauthorized area without her precious body guard.

     “Please say you’ll be there.”

     “I’m not doing anything else,” she said, and even the words left a rush of shivers in her gut. Tops wanted to see her  _outside_ of school! 

     Permeating relief, Tops said, “Thank Jesus. Aunt Bonnie made me pay for them which, even with the discount,” he shrugged in ‘You know how these things are,’ fashion.

     She didn’t ever pay for things, so she didn’t know, but she nodded, and, “l…I’m really excited!” she squealed, clapped a hand over her mouth.

     Bright laughter. “I’m glad you like it.” He said, and hesitated, leaned closer, and his arms were around her shoulders and gone before she could process what happened, and—

     Oh…

     He had hugged her.

     Oh.

     Frisk clasped her hands in her lap, ridged elbows, and swiveled awkwardly in her seat. The bell relinquished a cheerful _ting_.

     “Heh…sorry. I’ll, uh, see you Saturday? Oh crap we have class tomorrow.” He gathered his camera and remaining photo into his bag and zipped it. “See you tomorrow?” Slung the strap over his shoulder, cheeks cherried under his vibrant fur. “And Saturday. Uh.”

     Frisk bit her lip and Tops turned foot, walked around the mahogany desk, pushed into and past the shuffling students, and squeezed out the door.

     Feathered excitement tickled her skin as she hopped down from her chair, passed the wide forest view, snatched her backpack from beside her easel, and left the mess in the corner to dry and flake. Following Tops’s path to the hall, she sped instinctively to her next class. She was going to the park. With her _friend_. She had never gone anywhere with a friend before.

     Next question: how the hell was she gonna pull it off?

 

**_ ii _ **

     “Where’s mom?” she asked, and Papyrus was loud in the kitchen _not_ cooking, and Sans, quiet on the lavish couch ignoring his brother’s instruction in favor of grotesque comedy.

     “WHY? ARE YOU NOT FLATTERED BY THE GREAT-AND-TERRIBLE PAPYRUS’S PRESENCE, HUMAN FRISK?” and he kept up with gathering ingredients and dividing them into bowls.

     Frisk shook her head. “It’s not that,” she hesitated. “It’s just…not the weekend, is all. Are you staying?”

     “OF COURSE NOT!” and he eyed her, raised an inquisitive brow, touching Frisk’s forehead with the back of his bone-puzzle hand. “SHOULD I FORCE SANS TO PREPARE SOMETHING MORE POTENT? YOU LOOK FRAIL…”

     She lifted him away by his ruler-long finger, rolling her eyes at his usual overzealousness. “I’m _fine_ Pappy, you’ve just been gone so much lately.”

     “YES, WELL…I HAVE VERY IMPORTANT DUTIES TO ATTEND TO. AS INSUFFICIENT AS MY BROTHER IS, HE WILL MORE THAN SUFFICE AS A FORM OF PROTECTION!” He then leaned into the living room in order to perform a direct attack. “AS LONG AS HE DOESN’T NUTRITIONALLY STARVE HER WITH DISGUSTING GREASE-BURGERS ALL WEEK!!!”

     Week?

     “Where did mom go?”

     And Sans was behind her, and his hand was on her shoulder, and his ribs pressed into her hair, Frisk stiffening at the suddenness of it.

     “emergency meeting with the board of education...out’a the country,” he said, and he rubbed the spine of her neck with his thumb as he turned to his brother. “and i can take care of the little princess like i do every weekend without your stinkin’ no good help!”

     Papyrus closed the last container with a plastic _plunk_ , turning his ungodly height to look down on Sans. “IT SEEMS AS IF THE HUMAN DISAGREES.” He walked through the kitchen, living room. Opened the door, turned to the two. “CALL ME IF YOU NEED SOMEONE…MORE EFFECTIVE,” and slammed the door. He could never do anything quietly.

     Frisk tried, “What..?” and Sans was acting…just a bit off. Was she in trouble?

     “i dunno about the food, but pap sure is salty,” he chortled, and her heart flickered as he stepped in front of her. Crouched all the way down to her height. Rested a hand on her shoulder, and rustled his fingers through her hair. “happy birthday, kiddo.”

     Her soul shined, and maybe she was just being paranoid. He seemed happy enough, despite the small piece of guilt pulled at her. Maybe if she just _told_ him about the park ... She opened her mouth, centimeters away from letting her uncommitted sins pile out, and, “Thank you.”

     “hmm.” Sans tilted his head, inspecting, taking his skeletal fingers out of her hair to move her messy bangs from her forehead and press his teeth to the skin. He pulled away, his face a squat parody of Papyrus’s arched worry. “maybe i’ll have grillbz make ya some soup.”

     And her lip stuck out on it’s own. She did love Grillby’s soup... “But it’s my _birthday_!”

     “pfft.” Sans stood, took her hand, flicked his wrist, and the containers clashed in the fridge with the jars and the produce. Frisk winced. “fine, but if ya get sick don’t come cryin’ to me.”

     And she was floating, resisting the nothing that pressed against her stomach and threatened to force out its contents. The lapse in reality warped her surroundings and barraged her senses with sudden change, but the simultaneous over and under stimulation of teleportation was familiar to her, and instantly they were there, the usual homey stools empty, and a fat slice of pie on the deep, wooden bar top for Frisk, — she hated cake — which she would be eating first, of course. She trotted up, and there was something else, too. A little black box next to the pie, and strung to it was a pink ribbon — her unadmitted favorite color — tied into a perfect puffy bow.

     Frisk stared at it. Sat in her chair. She couldn’t take her eyes off it, honestly. What was it doing there?

Sans prodded her side. “open it,” and he looked between she and the box with a broad grin.

     Her heart pattered — _thump thump thump_ — and was he sure? Grillby brought their food, but she hardly noticed it sliding in front of her because Sans _nodded_ , and she reached for the thing — soft, fuzzy — and tugged on the ribbon.

     It…was it a ruby? It looked like a ruby necklace, gold chained and the little heart droplet at the end _glowing_. Her throat tightened.

     “ya like it?”

     She flung her arms around him, and he chuckled low, satisfied, as he reached past her and picked up the jewel on its delicate chain. He clipped it around her neck sideways, and with Frisk refusing let go, shimmied it into position. He rubbed her back and—

     He was the best uncle— best _friend_ in the world, and really… _honestly_ she was just a stupid kid. She should just tell him about Tops and MttWorld even if he wouldn’t like it, wouldn’t want her to go. The secrecy clogged her despite the fact she hadn’t eaten.

     He patted her. “food’s gonna get cold,” he groused, and he was probably hungry. She should let it go.

     She shifted to the pie, downing half as Sans fondled a few crispy, salty fries. He shoved them between his teeth followed by an unhealthy squirt of mustard, and stared at Frisk as if to ensure she was watching.

     What a _dork_.

     Frisk narrowed her eyes at him, just as intent. Picked up her glass of chocolate milk and took a sip…

     Little floating beads of sour ( _mustard_!) drifted with sugary sweet on her tongue. She spit it back in the cup, and turned to Sans with a particular glare. His grin cut through her question, the obvious culprit caught. Why did he have to ruin everything with mustard? At this point she was surprised the necklace wasn’t composed of the hardened condiment in disguise!

     “Oh my God that is so GROSS!” she squealed.

And he had a bit of fry hanging in his teeth when he deflected, “ha! wuss. can’t even musterd the guts ta drink it?”

     “I can too!” Frisk was made of the stuff by now. She could do it in her sleep! And she chugged, smacking his arm, playful, while she did, and Sans…  
Grabbed her wrist and _squeezed_.

    She choked. He grinned, victorious, at the chocolaty thing soaking into her white shirt, and she  _pulled_ , splashing to the ground, shattering glass, and, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Her breath was too fast, too hard, and she was being stupid. Causing a scene. This was _stupid_. She was not in the underground, this was the _surface, surface, Sans was her friend, took care of her_ —

     “are you o—”

     She pushed his hand away. “I’m fine!”

     And Sans was still, outstretched, face twisted as if she’d stung him.

     “I can... _walk_ home.” She stood. Wiped the milk from her chin with her shaking wrist. “I’m sorry Grillby… about the cup…” and she brushed slivers of glass from herself as she tottered to the door and pushed it open. It was warm out, but Frisk wished she had a sweater to hide in instead of being in sodden school clothes. Sans stalked behind her, silent.

     She felt guilty, guilty, it had been a good day. They were having a nice time and she _ruined_ it. She had to say something before her throat closed up inside her. “I’m sorry,” she rasped.

     “‘s fine, kiddo. i’m more worried about you fallin’ on your glass.”

     Automatically, she rolled her glossy eyes. That wasn’t _funny_ , and probably didn’t even count as a pun. “Sans,” she whined.

     “yer smilin’.” He poked her cheek, and—

     How did he always do that? Always cheer her up as if he had some secret code a la Frisk? 

     She was...she didn’t deserve it. She should just  _tell_ him, and maybe he wouldn’t be as angry as she was expecting. As angry as he would be if he found out on his own. “Um, sans I have to...tell you...” She bit her lip, glanced, pleading, and  _please don’t be mad_.

     But Sans’s grin faded as he looked at her, a sigh escaping with the words, “look, if this is about that boy—”

     And  _how did he know_? How did he _always_ know everything? She had tried so hard to keep it a secret, why was he _just now_ saying something?

     She floundered, “What boy?”

     “Frisk,” he warned.

     This wasn’t  _fair_! He wasn’t even giving her a chance. She would have told him if he’d just  _let her_ instead of taking away every option but his. “He’s nice, Sans! Please, I’m 13, I really _like_ him!”

     His grip on her wrist, and she restrained the temptation to pull away as he cautioned her name and, “I don’t wanna say it again.”

     “No!” desperate, pitchy, and she meekly tugged.

     They fell back into Sans’s house, standing behind his green, lumpy couch. He let go, and she brought her stinging wrist to her chest.

     “You aren’t old enough to date. End of story.”

 

 

 

 

 🦋


	3. Chapter 3

If you give away the pieces of yourself  
Let the person you love crack you open  
And take, over and over  
When do you disappear?

 

**_ i _ **

     The air was fresh, hot, salty, and Frisk bubbled under the secrecy of the setting sun, and the sandy pavement on the backs of her legs. Tops — with skin flushed so deep you could see it under his vibrant fur — was preoccupied with inching his pinky toward hers, innocently, and Frisk rouged as he brushed against her.

     Tops stammered, “S-so um, what’s your favorite ride? At Mtt?” and his little finger hooked around hers, and—

     How was she supposed to think like this? “I’ve never actually been in the park part.”

     “What?” he gawked. “You _know_ Mettaton! How have you not ridden every ride a hundred times?”

     “Sans doesn’t like it there.” She shrugged, and written on Tops’s face was the impossibility of it.

     He shifted closer, the short cuffs of their white school shirts clinging to each other. “But why doesn’t someone else take you?”

     She blinked. “I mean…Sans is just…he’s the one who takes me places, besides when I go to the store with Mom, because he doesn’t like the crowds.” She rested her head on his shoulder and, “He did try to take me once, on my 10’th birthday.” She admitted, and chirruped. “He said it smelled bad, even though grease is like, his favorite scent.”

     “Mmm…” He nodded, and the waves lapped a wet ring at the edge of the beach, hypnotizing them alongside the deepening sky. Frisk reclined onto her palms, enjoying the delicate churns of the water when Tops finally interrupted them.

     “ _I’m_ taking you this time,” and he smiled gently, stringing his fingers through hers and jump-starting her heart. She was sure the shock left her skin looking as if it were smothered in spaghetti sauce — just that attractive — and she tipped her head, willing her sloppy hair to fall into her face and hide what she could.

     Tops _laughed_ and squeezed her hand, and when did he get all this confidence? She didn’t remember him being like this even a few minutes ago, and it wasn’t fair how easy it was for him to just _hold her hand_ as if it were no big deal while she flopped around like an interesting worm!

     “I think you’re the cute one,” he said, and Frisk swallowed wrong, suffocated on her spit, which was okay with her. She was ready to go now. The teasing was so powerful she never had a chance, anyhow.

     And then thumping on her back, and hacking, and more laughter. Her throat itched and burned as she tried to decide whether to breath or cough, and when she calmed down, dregs of snickering from beside her as if Tops had been having a similar quarrel, but between air and laughter. She turned to glare at him, his face close enough that she could smell cinnamon lingering in front of her, and instead of spewing empty threats, her eyes widened. All the giggles fled.

     “Oh man,” he said, breathy and warm and—

     Was this a kiss? Were they gonna kiss? She leaned in closer and...she hoped she looked cute.

     “ **Havin’ fun?** ”

     She stilled. Couldn’t breath, and neither did Tops, the spice of cinnamon pulling out of the air.

     “ **Hmm, funny. Yer phone’s lighting up just fine…wonder why ya haven’t been answerin’ for the past _hour_?** ”

     And she was up, in front of Sans, not bothering with her phone on the sidewalk. She drew his attention, stood on her toes, craned her neck, and if only she were tall enough to block his view. She wavered in front of the black-socketed skeleton. “Sa-sans?”

     “Just Sans is fine.” And he sounded less…vicious, but his grin was still sharp.

     Frisk looked behind her, and Tops was gone, his bike was gone, and she would be lying if she said she wasn’t disappointed, but…she would have done the same. Anyway, if she were going to have a boyfriend, — if they were even _together_ anymore — she’d liked him _alive_. He was…she shouldn’t get her hopes up about the together part.

     Sans snarked, “didn’t think yer boyfriend was such a pussy,” and his gold tooth glinted in the last of the light.

     “He’s not,” she said. “You’re just an ass.”

     Sans punched at his phone with his thumbs. “you sneak away ta god knows where, and i’m the ass?”

     “Maybe if you weren’t constantly hanging over me I wouldn’t _have_ to!”

     He snatched her arm. “maybe you should show a little respect. i’m gettin’ pretty tired of yer shit.”

     “You can’t jerk me around, I’m not a kid!” Frisk yanked at his solid grip, but Sans pulled her closer.

     His tone thrummed low with warning. “then stop actin’ like one, ya fuckin’ brat.”

     Frisk’s vitriol pierced Sans’s white pupils. Her nostrils flared. “ _Make_ me.” and her insides tugged, warped, popped into a new existence, and she dazed, “I thought we were staying at your house?”

     Sans sat himself on Frisk’s small, human bed so he was even with her line of sight. His claws imprinted themselves on her arm. “we are.”

     Frisk looked from him to the limb, and her senses returned, panic rising in her guts. Panic for _herself_. Her fingers twitched as she placed her unshackled hand on his shackling one, and she was stern and confident in that believably false way that only a child who has died many times can attest to. “Let. Me. Go.”

     And some Instinct of his was set off by her demand. His sockets blanked, and the bitter mix of beer and mustard on his breath were too close. The baritone of his words rang in her skin when he asked, “ **Or what?** ”

     And he saw through her act. He...he was gonna hurt her. Frisk turned, foot on bed, and _yanked_ with the leverage.

     Sans grinned, pleasured by the loud _POP_ , and the yell that vibrated through hollow plaster. He didn’t release her or fix her arm, but instead he took the other, and as she dangled with the shock of her own idiocy, he lifted her, front down, onto his boney lap.

     Frisk’s head whirled. Her thin forearms were pinched together by a vice, her shoulder ripping as bone scraped against itself, and pinched muscle. She tried, feebly, to slide off his lap, and Sans clasped forward leg between the bed and the thick bone of his shin, trapping her in place. She hadn’t been afraid to die for a very long time, and she hadn’t seen this side of Sans for longer: the side that wasn’t shy about liking his prey a little bloodied up first.

     “Sans.”

     “what?”

     “I can’t _save_ out here.” Frisk pleaded, calm and even in the midst of her fear.

     And his hand rested on her calf, almost comforting. “i know that, kiddo.”

     “Five years, Sans. This isn’t worth it.” Her shoulder stabbed, and her diaphragm ached from breathing into Sans’s pointy thigh bones.

     “ya think i’m some kind of idiot? i ain’t about ta send us back in that pit,” he scolded. “i’m just…tryin’ something new. a human technique i picked up.”

     “A human…?” Frisk’s brain clacked from point to point like a marble, landing loudly on it’s conclusion. “Don’t you dare!” and she jerked in his grip, sending her broken joint into a disfigured angle, and crying out.

     “you never were a quick learner.” And a smack burned the naked skin on the back of her thigh in a thick, even strip.

     Frisk screeched, and jerked, and screeched again.

     “maybe you just need a helpin’ hand ta figure out that you can’t.”  _A belt_ , he sent it down with a second, nasty snap on top of the first hot welt. “do whatever.” A third time. “you _want_.”

     It _hurt_. Frisk’s throat rasped with her screams. She shivered, shamed tears soaking into her sheets, but she didn’t move anymore.

     “see? it’s workin’ already.” And he paused. Pushed up the pleated fabric of her skirt and—

     Frisk blazed, sick. He could see her underwear, and Sans had seen a lot of things. Her entails spilling from her split stomach, for instance, but _this_. This felt wrong.

     “Stop!” she wailed, frail with throbbing pain and embarrassment, but then a searing, numbing thing, and _he didn’t have to hit her that hard_ , and by the time her clustered nervous system scrambled back into coherence, it was scattered again. Frisk couldn’t help jerking. Could hardly hear herself scream, and the fifth, sixth, ten...she was gone. She _was_ those strokes and all the fury they lashed, and the pain they gifted, and Frisk…

     She needed something else in her world besides pain. This is where she used to die, will her soul to shatter and the matter of her world to remerge at her SAVE, but death hadn’t asked for her. No LOAD in her horizon. There was something, though. For all the hurt, a tiny flair of _pleasure_ gathered deep inside, and if she focused on that…

     Frisk realized, core blooming, and strikes slashing, and pain, and pleasure, and that was her  _uncle’s_ leg pressing into her—

     “N-no—STO-AAAHHH!” It was all gone in a wave of blank, searing pleasure, clit throbbing — aggressive, needy — and whiting everything out of her vision. She was panting, endorphins rambling through her body as she became aware, or more, came to care for her surroundings.

     Sans was still. Petrified wood, and Frisk was shifting from a state of dazed bliss to an equal state of blazing pain.

     “did you just…?” Sans stiffly set the belt on the bed, and, “have you been…?”

She couldn’t breathe. _Disgusting, filthy, dirty, FREAK_. What had she _done_?

     Sans was inhaling, slow and shallow, with a forced steadiness. His fingers rested on the back of her calf, bruised, sore, and his hand. Moved. Up.

     Frisk’s head clouded with smoky black, and—

     He feathered by the cotton barrier, slipped past, _agonizing_ — **wrong, bad, _NO_!** — pushed into her grabbing entrance and _moved inside her_.

     She made a sound. A putrid, wanting sound that garbled into desperate, heaving sobs and she begged the way she had never _once_ begged for her life— “Plea-hease, stop please Sans, PLEASE!”

     He withdrew. Disappeared.

     Frisk’s arms slackened along her back without his hold, and she, still blubbering, watched him reappear, facing away, with a careless _crack_.

     His arms were still poised with his misdeeds. He was shaking, sweat beading on the back of his skull, breath panicked. “I’m s—” he choked, and he turn toward Frisk, who could hardly see for her blobs of tears, or move for her frayed nervous system, or speak for her broken voice. He looked frantically over her, like she were a puppy he kicked instead of a pebble, and, “your arm,” he rasped.

     And she could do nothing about his presence but hiccup, and cry, and tremble, and feel ready to wretch by the black ooze that coated her stomach.

     He placed her arms at her sides, lifting her by her torso. Sat beside her, drawing her into his lap. Her shoulders rocked against his chest, and he moved her coarse waves off her wet face. “this is gonna hurt,” he said, and cupped her shoulder, and _snap_.

     But Frisk just wept, the flow of sounds uninterrupted.

     He choked again, “frisk?” and he wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her as if she were a porcelain doll.

     Wet drops ran down her hair and on her scalp. Sans hiccupped, and his breath puffed on her skin, hot. He was crying, too.

     “i’m sorry,” he said.

     And he was hurting, too.

     “i’m so sorry, frisk,” he sobbed.

     And she was sorry, too.

 

 

 

 

 🦋


	4. Chapter 4

Picking open old wounds  
Is like finding myself again  
Never thought I’d see you so soon  
How have you been, old friend?

 

_**i** _

     Her family, pinned to the cork board at the back of her locker, and smiling back at her was the sharp, cheesy grin of her uncle. Of Sans. And it had been so unexpected that she was nearly _sick_ right there in the hall. Had caught her so off guard, her eyes were stuck to his goofy smirk and the bunny ears he made behind her head, and the poisonous red that felt ready to leap at her like a fat black widow, if only she were careless enough to make a move. She had been 10 years old in that photo. Her stomach sloughed as that boundless part of her halted and she realized that she was hardly any older now, and—

     Why was she so _nauseous_?

     A jangled knock at her open locker door, and her palm bit into its edge. Timidly, she lifted her textbook, tucked it in her arms, shut the racketing metal.

     Tops stood with a puff to his chest, one arm folded behind his back, Frisk’s phone presented in his outstretched palm like a present. “M’lady,” he said, and a sly grin sprouted.

     The beach. He had gone back and nabbed her phone _despite_ how angry Sans had been. Why? He had been inches away from her infamous and protective uncle. Wasn’t he afraid? But she took it from his hand, and he held his arm out for her to grab…like he wanted to _keep_ her. Like Sans hadn’t scared him away.

     She didn’t know what to do. She felt sticky and wrong that he wouldn’t just leave after she…

     After…

     No matter how far she reached, she couldn’t retrieve the evasive thing that kept leaving Its muddy slick wherever it fluttered, — _sick traitor_ — but she knew she had done something very wrong. She left the thought behind. Took his offered arm without a word, and Tops’s face pinched with worry, but some days Frisk just didn’t want to talk. He walked her to class, and kissed her cheek, and she smiled — _everything was okay_.

     Everything was okay…

 

**_ii_ **

     As soon as she got in the house, a fervent urge to get _away_ from Sans encroached, and she sprinted to her room, ignoring whatever it was he was saying behind her. _Guilty,_ she could be so  _nasty_ sometimes, and for no reason at all. He didn’t deserve for her to treat him that.

     Slinking at the image of him, a lonesome pile of bones hanging on the couch without company, Frisk slid down. Sat, back to her bed, on the rough carpet, as she opened her phone and watched the wine-stained glow of her necklace fight with the daylight blue of the screen. She couldn’t bring herself to touch it for long enough to do anything other than keep it lit, but that was…progress? Toward what, she…she didn’t know. She wasn’t sure what she was trying to do, only that it was…it must have been _important_.

     And if it was that imperative, her first instinct was toward Sans. Her thumb even moved on its own to the phone app and was very close to touching the goofiest picture she had ever taken of him — he had his pinky stuck halfway up his nasal cavity, even though he was a skeleton and didn’t produce boogers — before she remembered that Sans was right in the living room. Why would she call him when she could go out there and _ask_ …

     And ask _why_ he would…

     With an acidic lurch she realized that he was the reason for this growing urgency.

     She whimpered, the nails of her free hand digging into the carpet, catching on strands of fabric. She passed over her mother’s name, because her mother was not there and would only become frantic, and called Papyrus.

  
     The line rang several times.

  
     He answered, a tough and cool ‘HELLO?’ booming through the speaker, and he instantly moved on, babbling something about ‘do you need a better babysitter after all?’ and what—

     What was she doing? What was she _thinking_? She needed to hang up now, or she would ruin _everything_. She wasn’t stupid. She knew what happened was sick and bad and wrong, even for monsters, but Sans, _gone_. Forever. That’s where she was headed.

     And anyway, would Papyrus… _believe_ her? That Sans might even do something like that?

     What would happen if he did?

     It had been a long time, but if her mother had an ‘episode’, or if Frisk were in any real trouble, Sans always just seem to _know_. What would happen to her if something caught her off guard? Who... _who would take care of her if Sans was gone_?

 

     “UM, FRISK? I CAN HEAR YOU BREATHING...” Papyrus deadpanned, and then with considerably more irritation, shouted, “THIS HAD BETTER NOT BE SANS PLAYING ANOTHER ONE OF HIS CREEPY ‘PRANKS’, OR I WILL TELEP—”

     “I-it’s just me, Papyrus!” and Frisk flailed her arms as with the many times she had placated the brother’s extreme version of ‘roughhousing’ when she was around to do it. “I-I-I just missed you, is all!”

     And Frisk knew Papyrus, so she didn’t even need him there to see the look of surprise on his face, or feel that maybe he was even a little _worried_ during that long pause. He really hadn’t been expecting her to call.

     And still, a part of her screamed for her to say _something_ , _anything_. Just say the words ‘ _help me_ ’, and he would know what to do and this could all be over.

     And everyone’s lives would be ruined when _she_...had been just as responsible.

     “Maybe next time you could...stay for a bit?” she croaked.

  
      He approached gently. “I…Truly Am Very busy.”

     Her hand tightened on the phone. She wasn’t disappointed.

     She _wasn’t_.

     “B-BUT! WHEN YOUR MOTHER RETURNS, THE GREAT AND TERRIBLE PAPYRUS WILL GIVE THE UTMOST EFFORT TO SEAMLESSLY APPEAR IN TWO PLACES AT ONCE!!!”

     And now she had stretched Papyrus’s already extensive efforts even further. She was the worst. Worst friend. Worst person. She inverted into that little child she’d never really grow past, and forced each word over her pinching vocal cords. “It’s okay. You don’t have to—”

     “NONSENSE! IT’S ALREADY ON MY CALENDAR!! YOU WILL NEVER STOP THE NEFARIOUS PLANS OF THE GREAT PAPYRUS, NYE-HEH!!!”

He hung up, and she was alone.

 

 

 

 

 🦋


	5. Chapter 5

I don’t know where I’ve been  
And it’s been such a long time  
Since I really saw the difference  
Between you and I

And I don’t know where I stand  
Faced with a cruel world  
I’d say everything points to  
The disappearance of the girl

[-Phidel](https://youtu.be/M-pRlJvj-4U)

_**i** _

     If Frisk was old enough, she would be smoking right now. It would be almost picturesque: she, sitting alone at the empty theme park entrance, sun pink in the sky, grey smog ballooning from her nostrils as an early-bird janitor eyed her skeptically. Stopped to ask if she was okay.

     “Just waiting for it to open,” she shrugged, hands pressed to the leggings covering her stiff knees. She looked significantly more like a skittish schoolgirl without the cigarette.

     The blue jay nodded, reluctant, feathered fingers wrapped around a thermos steaming with bitter roast, and strutted through the pink, glamor-stuffed entrance barred to Frisk until opening. She pulled her necklace from beneath her shirt, twisting the chain around her forefinger. Picked up her phone flitting a text to Tops.

     < You: At MttWorld if you wanted to join… )

     And she was so early he probably wasn’t awake yet. She sneakered the cement.

 _Sans_ wasn’t up either. As soon as he was, he would know she wasn’t home, probably know where she was, but she just needed time. Just _one day_. She still hadn’t apologized, but... _he_ had said he was sorry, and he had never done that before, so he understood, right?

     She fidgeted. Sent another text.

     < You: Is 10 okay? I know I’m early >,< )

 

     People filed to their posts, the occasional monster shooting her looks of half-recognition or hellos, and Tops’s aunt, Bonnie, waved with a sweet, chilled ‘hiya, Frisk’, as Frisk waited for her phone to alight with an answer. Maybe she could ask Bonnie whether she knew if Tops was awake yet, but she was probably already running behind. The park would open in less than an hour. Anyway, wasn’t that Tops right there?

     And, Oh, what a _dork_. He bounded toward her, huge backpack hopping behind him, and he hadn’t even bothered to text her. She’d been sitting there for over an hour, worrying and wondering, and a smile split across her face as Tops huffed up to her. Kissed her on the cheek.

     Her face warmed. “Now you’re early too, you dork,” her tone berated, but she couldn’t pry the glee from her expression if she tried.

     He nodded, apologetically crooked, and hauled the oversized pack off his shoulder, setting it between them. “I didn’t wanna leave you alone,” he shrugged. “Besides, I brought breakfast!”

     He unzipped the bag and pulled out _actual_ porcelain plates and _real_ silverware. There wasn’t a table in site, and Frisk muffled her snickers with her hand as her heart pattered in her chest. She really liked him.

 

**_ii_ **

     “There’s no way you’re afraid right now,” Tops snickered, and Frisk shuffled, discomforted, at the front of the line, tugging her sleeves past her hands and glaring.

     “I’m not!” she defended, leaning into the closed gate, _eager_ , not afraid! No way she’d let a stupid _rollercoaster_ scare her. Even though the drop was steep, and she just…hated the feeling of falling, that didn’t make her scared!

     Tops tittered, wrapping around her shoulders. “You don’t need to be so defensive. I think it’s cute,”

     She crossed her arms. Pouted. Withheld the urge to hyperventilate as the buzzing carts swallowed the argent tracks. Piles of monsters and specks of humans leapt from their seats, then synchronously, the gates swung open, and whether she wanted to or not, she rambled into the ride, shade slatting her warm, brown skin. Her shoes hung limp over the floor, and Tops, who in Frisk’s nervousness had been forgotten, laced his fingers through hers comfortingly.

     “Are you glad I’m here with you?” he asked.

     She beamed, and the restraints fell over her shoulders. Pulling them tight with her free hand, Frisk let herself thaw in her seat, jittery kicks against metal with the backs of her heels. A ghost and a spider bickered over who should check the restraints until the ghost pointed out it was incorporeal, and the spider sighed and began pressing down on the yellow, padded shoulder bars with all the enthusiasm of a toppled ice cream cone.

     She squeezed her boyfriend’s hand, anticipation rising as the over-cheerful ‘please keep all body parts within the boundaries of the cart, and have an MTT ride!’ announcement chimed. The coaster jerked. Clacked in hastening increments, rolling into the sun and climbing, climbing, climbing until she hovered over the park like a hummingbird.

     Drop tower, balloon in tree, speckled onlookers, gold glint.

     Frisk’s stomach floated, and she _screamed_.

 

**_iii_ **

     “Is that Bratty?” Frisk pointed at the green-snouted splotch leaning on the bare hotdog stand some distance away.

     Tops paused, squinted, was dragged along like paper in the wind of Frisk’s excitement at seeing a fellow schoolgoer outside of the familiar building. She waved with too much enthusiasm as Bratty’s crocodile eyes wandered from her phone and fell over the pair.

     Bratty tried for a smile but was less enthusiastic, and as they approached, she arched a stiff, scaly brow at Frisk’s boyfriend, to which frisk replied, “Oh, this is Tops!”

     And everyone continued to stare between each other, some unspoken words of which Frisk couldn’t decipher spilling around them, and so she injected her own relaxant into the conversation. “I had no idea you had a job here.”

     Without talking her eyes off Tops, “Yeah, some people actually have to like, work for a living. We can’t all get our rich girlfriends to buy us stuff.”

     And he looked ready to melt away. “I think I’ll…use the bathroom,” he said thumbing in any direction that wasn’t where they were now, and walking there.

     “Um…” Frisk drew. Turned to Bratty. “I don’t think I’ve ever bought him anything. He bought the tickets to come here.” Even though she could have gotten them in for free, she would never tell him that if she could help it. “But I’ll buy now!” and it dawned on Frisk that her uncle Sans owned the stands, and…she felt too conscious of the fact the she _did_ have a lot of gold but she never had to pay for anything. She put 3G on the counter.

     Mouth pressed thin, Bratty stared at the ancient currency and back at Frisk. “Are you insane?”

     “I don’t...does it cost more?” Frisk reached into her shorts pocket, but Bratty guffawed, held up a halting hand.

     “No, _no_ , I don’t have enough change for that and it’s not even _valid_ anymore, just…” she pulled out two buns in ruffled paper, slid open the metal hatch on top of the stand filled with floating watersausages, tonged a couple into the bread. “Sans would totally fire me if he knew I charged you anyway.” She shoved the two dogs and 3G to the edge of the counter, close the pan with a _clank_.

     Frisk picked up a dog with each hand and stared at the coins. “You can have that if you want.”

     She sneered, “As if I need your charity,” and glanced behind Frisk’s shoulder, rolling her eyes and fishing for her phone to tap at it languorously. “Like, greeeat. Your bae’s back.”

     Good. Frisk handed Tops a sausage — “I got this for you. Kind of.” — and pluck her coins from the counter, pocketing them.

     Tops’s eyelid twitched as he watched. “Did you just…try to pay for hotdogs with _gold_?”

     Firmly stuck somewhere virtual, Bratty was of no help.

“No…?”

     Tops sucked air in one molecule at a time, overfilling his lungs, and released it just as slowly. “Alright, then,” and he moved to drowning his ‘dog with copious globs of every condiment at the bar. Bratty scrutinized sourly as if she were now ready to charge just for all the goodies he was piling on, until he picked up the mustard, shook, squeezed. It farted wet little divots into his slurry of other toppings.

     “What?” Bratty slumped. “I _just_ filled that. Like, how does it keep running out?”

     Something deep in Frisk bubbled, and she almost squished her watersausage. Did she need a bigger hint?

     She pulled out her phone.

  
     < You: Leave. )

               ( Sans: that an order boss? >

  
     And the fact that he answered so immediately rubbed it in. Had he been here the entire time? She looked at Tops, who was visibly disappointed at being unable to smother on his twelfth topping, since Bratty now refused to refill the magically draining condiment. Frisk wished she had the concentration to enjoy her ridiculous boyfriend, but Sans was just…

     Sans hated this place, so why was he even here?!

  
     < You: Please! )

               ( Sans: cut the crap you know I cant >

  
     Dejected, mustardless, Tops walked Frisk to a table, where she set her food down and said a little too loudly for her current company, “I’m going to go to the bathroom.”

     Mid-bite, he nodded, and a blob of relishy mayo fell from the butt of his bread and plopped onto his paper holder. It was Frisk’s turn to twitch. She plastered on a smile and left for the adequate magenta restrooms, which were closer than she had anticipated —they had passed them on the way to the hot dog stand — but still out of sight of her boyfriend. She scanned left, right, walked around the side of the small building, and found Sans waist deep in the bitter-berried thickets that lined the rear of it.

     “I’m pretty sure those bushes mean you’re not supposed to be back there.”

     “better ‘n being out there.”

     “You’re really so terrified of a theme park you’d rather hide behind the girls bathroom like a gross pervert?” And usually that comment would have been inane. Frisk had said similar things to him more times than she could count, but this time it sent flooding back a wash of memories she would rather see dead.

     Someone stopped and stared at the frightened girl and the glowering man hiding in the bushes. She could feel them behind her. With his sockets glued to them, Sans stepped out, offered his hand, but made no other proclamations to his innocence, and Frisk did what she was told, as she always eventually did.

     They plunged.

     She was hardly solid again when, “Take me back, _now_.”

     Sans’s living room.

     He chortled. “what about yer front?”

     “Shut up!” Frisk snarled, and Sans’s grin lit dangerously, his fingers dug sharp between hers, but she boiled so rapidly she was blind to it. “You take me back or I _will_ ,” Air punched her chest painful, hysterical. Her voice rose to a shrill note. “I’ll tell! You asshole! I’ll tell _everyone_ what you did to me!” and she wanted to hit him. To pull his arm from its socket, beat him until there was nothing left in his hollow body but a film of dust, and why? What about what _she_ had done to _him_? She had no right to be so angry, but she couldn’t stop herself. She hated it.

     Her thoughts jerked.

     Sans crouched, arms firm around her torso, face buried in her neck as her limbs hung limp.

     “if you want to...” His grasp tightened. He tried again, his voice deep and reassuring. “if you want to…”

     If Sans had a gut, she knew she had punched him where it hurt, and if she fell into the void, she hardly noticed, but he was gone and she was staring at the evergreen thickets again.

     For her mind to roll forward enough to place herself, to turn her body around and move it back to where she had been before the bathrooms, would be to acknowledge reality. A reality she wanted to clasp between her hands and hold beneath the waters edge until it wasn’t anymore.

     “Frisk?” A light hand fell on her shoulder. “Hey, are you okay?”

     She pulled at the tips of her hair. “Yeah… uh, just Jerry. Caught him peeping ya know?”

     Tops brought her into a one-armed hug, rubbed her back, reassuring. “Why are your eyes red?”

     She shrugged. “He was _watching_ me,” she said with more vitriol than she had anticipated. And that was fine. Probably made her believable. With a pit of guilt weighing on her, she asked, “Hey, can we…go home?” And maybe it was wrong to ask him to leave so soon, but she had to go back and explain herself for hurting Sans yet again. Because of it, she was ruining this beautiful day. She was ruining Tops’s birthday present for her, and that made her feel worse, but he didn’t even ask why. Just sighed and started slowly toward the exit.

     He was so nice. She didn’t deserve it.

 

 

  
     They were ending the long walk to Frisk’s uncles’ when a thought landed. “Whatever happened to nice cream? I used to love that stuff.”

     “Oh!” He perked. “I’m surprised you remember that and not ice scream.”

     “I remember both but I guess…I really liked the little messages you wrote on the nice cream wrappers.”

     “You were my best customer!” Tops grinned, laced his fingers, planting them on his head in thought. “I wanted to keep the nice cream business, too. When the barrier broke, and we got back the memories from that other—” He whirled a hand around, groping for the word.

     “Timeline.”

     Nod. “I wanted to move forward with the happy stuff, but the humans wanted novelty, and you know how most monsters feel about ‘nice’ things.” Tops stuck his thumbs into the straps of his backpack, which clattered with occasional empty dish sounds, and shrugged. “I think the compliments made people uncomfortable.”

     He was just as delusional as her for trying to hold on to a past too dilapidated by violence to repair, but maybe that’s what she admired so much about him. She felt a lot less lonely when she wasn’t the only one still wishing they could go back. She had tried everything she could to fix things. She hoped he understood that.

     Sans’s house.

     She stopped in front of the empty driveway. “If you want to try again, you’ve got a regular customer.” And with her soul squirming, she popped onto her tiptoes and kissed him on the lips.

     His eyes widened, then he sank into it, pulling her closer by the shoulders, and when they parted they were both blushing all over, but she feigned some aloof, manic pixie thing as she gaited to the door, opened it, took one glance at his dopey, dreamy smirk, and closed herself in.

     With her back pressed to the door, she slid down, sitting with her mind in lucid pressure. She. Had. Kissed. Him, and she was red as the rose bud that swirled through her head.

     And she was home, — silence pushed — and the warmth of his lips was still on hers, — darkness seeped — and she was on a cloud, in the sky, singing some happy tune into the emptiness.

     It was quiet.

     Was she alone? Sans wasn’t on the couch watching TV like normal.

     She stood up, dusting lint from her butt. Poked her head over the back of couch, but no sleeping Sans. Something seemed to crawl behind her, and she checked the kitchen, willing the nerves away. He wasn’t getting beers or mustard, and it was stupid to even look there, because who sits quietly in a kitchen? The bathroom door was open, no light…

     And incessant nagging behind her…  
He knew where she was. There was no way he hadn’t heard her close the door when it was this _quiet_. He was _avoiding_ her. Whatever crawled caught her, covering the last of her warm cheekiness in piercing crystals of ice. She went up the stairs holding herself seconds away from panic, and knocked on his bedroom door. She had made a mistake. A huge mistake, and he probably hated her for it. What if he left her? What if he wasn’t coming back?

     She knocked again, tried the knob, but it was locked, and what if he wasn’t even in the house because she had ruined _everything_ and he _left_ her?

     But he answered, rubbing a baggy socket and looking…unenthusiastic.

     She whispered, “I’m sorry.”

     And he tilted his head, but his body still blocked the slit of an opening inhospitably.

     “I’m so sorry Sans, _please_!” She was hanging in front of him, dying, and he was just watching, and _please_.

     She broke. “ _I didn’t mean to_!” And she held her arms out, needy. Miniscule. Weak.

     He swooped. Picked her up, cradling her as close as if she hadn’t grown in all the time they’d known each other. “no, no-no-no-no princess, don’t cry.”

     She grabbed at his sweater, chanting apologies, — _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry_ — a muddy streak of filth spreading and dripping inside of her as he shushed and coddled, but she needed him. She needed him, and she loved him, and she was _sorry_. She was _so sorry_ for hurting him.

     “ _Please don’t leave me_.”

 

 

 

 

 

 🦋


End file.
